faced a disruptive strike yet won the battle with the unions.
After this, the president of the company, John H.
Patterson, organized a personnel department dedicated to improving worker relations by handling employee grievances, discharges, safety and other employee issues.
Though they were not called such, people dedicated to HRM functions started appearing in the USA in the 1920s when mass production started spreading.
Personnel administrators were often called welfare secretaries in the 1920s.
Much of the modern theoretical work on HRM began around this period.
The studies conducted by George Elton Mayo (1880-1949), especially the Hawthorne Studies is credited as the foundation of the Human Relations Movement in management.
Only after WWII can we find specially designated units taking care of typical HRM functions.
In many Western countries, collective bargaining defined industrial relations and HRM gained in importance.
From the 1960s, the rise of Japan as a commercial power also required efficient HR systems being adopted by the Japanese corporations.
Globally, the profile of HRM started becoming widely recognised by the 1980s.
Universities and Business Schools started teaching different aspects of HRM in the 1990s.